


I'll be fine, just give me time.

by reciprocityfic (orphan_account)



Category: Dancing with the Stars (US) RPF, Maksyl - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Maksyl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2128008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/reciprocityfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time has a way of changing things, and sometimes it won't be for the better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll be fine, just give me time.

Nine years from now, she’ll be sitting at the kitchen table reading an email from a colleague when her five-year old daughter will crawl up on the chair next to her, dark blonde waves falling out of her ponytail.

“What’s this, Momma?”

She’ll look over at the screen of the tablet.  Her heart will stop when she sees the video the little girl has pulled up on YouTube.

“I thought you wanted to watch Ariel,” she’ll whisper to her daughter, to keep her voice from shaking.

“I finished, and I wanted to watch you and Uncle Charlie skating.  What is this, Momma?  What are you doing?”

“I’m dancing, sweetheart.”

She’ll be halfway through their Viennese Waltz.

The little girl’s eyebrows will scrunch together.

“I thought you danced on ice with Uncle Charlie.  Like me and Liam.”

“I did.  We did.”  She’ll force herself to smile at the girl, and then she’ll advert her eyes back to her computer.  “I danced on the floor, too.  For a little while.”

The little girl will move the video back and begin to watch the dance again.

“It’s pretty, Momma.”

“Thank you.”

 “Who’s that boy?”

She won’t answer right away.

She’ll feel like someone’s stabbing her in the stomach.

“He looks nice,” her daughter will tell her.  “And soft.  And cuddly.  He looks like a teddy bear.  I want to give him a hug.”

She won’t know what to say.

“Who is he, Momma?”

She’ll glance back over at her daughter, catch the video out of the corner of her eye.  They’ll be listening to the judges’ comments and she’ll look at home in his arms.

“He was my best friend.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” she’ll answer honestly.

“You have to know, Momma.  He’s your best friend.”

She’ll be silent.  A single tear will fall down her cheek, and the five-year old will reach up and wipe it away.

“Why are you sad, Momma?”

She’ll hold her daughter’s hand to her face.

“Sometimes, things don’t work out the way you think they will.”

“And they’re sad?”

“Yeah.  Sometimes, they’re sad.”

The little girl will look at her mother for a few moments before glancing back down at the video.

“It’s so pretty, Momma.  I want to dance on the floor, too.”

“We’ll talk to Liam.”

Her daughter will crawl down out of the chair, mumbling something about coloring a picture for Daddy to give to him when he gets home.  She’ll stop the girl before she runs away.

“Baby?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell Daddy about the video.  Or the dancing on the floor.”

“Or the teddy bear?”

She’ll smile to keep herself from screaming.

“Yes.  They’ll be our secret.”

The little girl will press her finger to her lips, and then run off to find her coloring books.

She’ll pick up the tablet from where the child left it sitting on the table, video still playing.  She’ll watch it for a moment, then close the page angrily, chastising herself for giving in, if only briefly.

The last words she heard will echo in her head for the rest of the day.

_“I’ve enjoyed this so much more.  It’s so much fun to dance, to live this out, to enjoy the ups and downs.  It’s amazing.”_

That night, her husband will crawl in bed after they’ve put their daughter to bed.  He won’t touch her.  He hasn’t for two months, since their last fight, which seemed to fill them both with a bitterness that neither has been able to dispel, as they had with the fights before.  She won’t ask him to touch her, because she’ll know it won’t make her feel any better.  He won’t have come home on time a single day for the past three weeks and they won’t make each other laugh anymore and she won’t feel beautiful when he looks at her.

She’ll remind herself of their daughter, sleeping obliviously in the next room.  She’ll remember with an isolating sorrow that this has to work for her sake.

When she sleeps that night, she’ll dream that she’s dancing with him.

*             *             *

Nine years from now, he’ll be sitting across from a conventionally gorgeous girl who is ten years too young for him at a dimly-lit, busy restaurant in New York City.  They’ll be finishing up their meals, and she’ll be talking as he finishes his glass of wine, and he won’t really be listening.  He’ll be distracted.  He’ll wonder where his dreams of a wife and kids and a yard and bulldogs disappeared to.

Afterwards, they’ll be strolling around Manhattan, arms linked, skin red as the cold December breeze blows against them.  She’ll lean up and whisper something rather dirty in his ear, because she’ll think he’s keeping her around for the sex.  He will be, partially.  He’ll lament not being able to offer her more, feel a sadness for her belief she can’t be something better than an aging bachelor’s plaything.

He’ll smile at her comment because he’s supposed to.

They’ll pass Rockefeller Center, and she’ll ask him to skate with her.

He’ll answer no immediately, harshly.

Her face will fall and he’ll feel like an ass.  This, coupled with feeling bad for her plight earlier, will possess him to say yes.

The regret will hit him as he’s lacing up his rented skates.  He’ll think to himself over and over again that this is fine, it will be fine.  It isn’t important and it won’t mean anything and it is fine.

The regret will  _really_ hit him when he steps out onto the ice, because he won’t be there anymore and the hand he’ll be holding will become much smaller and more delicate and she’ll be leading him around the rink, laughing at his apprehension.  He’ll fall and pull her down with him.  She’ll kiss his lips and then get up, skating away from him, stopping in the center of the ice.  She’ll spin and move her arms to a song only she can hear.

He’ll watch her from his seat on the ice, in awe.

A hand will squeeze his and he’ll be back in New York.  She’ll be staring at him.  She’ll ask him if he’s crying.

He’ll tell her no, that’s it’s cold, that he’s tired and wants to go home.

They’ll go home.  They’ll sit around in front of the television for a while, and then crawl into bed and fuck.  She’ll curl into his side afterwards, and he’ll try to feel something, for both of their sakes.

He’ll fail.  He’ll always fail, but he’ll tell himself to keep trying.  That maybe it will change.

As he falls asleep, he’ll will himself to dream of his kids and yard and bulldogs with this girl by his side as his wife.  He’ll will himself to picture something that will make him happy.

He’ll dream that he’s skating with her.

*             *             *

Today, they are happy.

Today, they are in Michigan rehearsing for their ice and ballroom dancing show.  They start the day at the rink, and he watches her and Charlie skate from the stands.  It is  _stunning_.  He feels a pang of jealously, because Charlie has something with her that he can never touch or be privy to.  But he see how much she loves it and the feeling fades as quickly as it came.

Marina comes and sits next to him, puts her head on his shoulder and watches her pupils with him.  He remarks that she was born to skate with Charlie.

Marina looks up at him and grins, patting his arm.

“Да. И она рождена танцевать с вами.”

_Yes.  And she was born to dance with you_.

He smiles, heart leaping as he watches her glide.

After she and Charlie are done, she calls him down to the edge of the ice, implores him to come out with her.  He denies her, and she pouts.  He kisses her frown away.  She warns him that she’ll get him out there someday, as she sits down to take off her skates.  He only laughs because he knows she’s right.

(She’ll get him out there, only a few weeks from now.  She’ll pull him around the ice and he’ll fall and she’ll laugh.  She’ll kiss him and then skate away, playing Notre Dame de Paris in her head and skating to her music.  He’ll watch her from his seat on the ice, in awe.)

They go to the studio to practice their dance.  He pulls her against him as the music starts, and they move across the floor with undeniable grace.  The dance is perfect.  Dancing with him is perfect, to her.  It feels like she’s been doing it her entire life.

It feels like home.

After they run the dance a handful of times, she makes him sit down on the wood floor.  She crawls into his lap, lays her head against his chest.  She hears his heartbeat under her ear, feels it against her skin.  He suggests going home.

“We can cuddle there too, you know.”

“Not by ourselves.  Not without everyone staring at us funny.”

His chest rumbles against her cheek as he laughs and concedes.  They stay there together, curled up in the middle of the floor, enjoying each other in silence, each reveling in the mere presence of the other.  Thirty minutes pass before they dare to move.

They head to her parents’ for dinner with Charlie, Tanith, and Sharna, who is also in town preparing for the show.  What she told him at the studio is right; every time the two of them touch, someone is always watching, gazing at them with a knowing smile.

After the gathering, he drives them back to her condo.  She leans against him the entire ride.  When they get into the house, they head straight to the bedroom, stripping and using the bathroom before they both fall onto the mattress and under the covers.  They are exhausted, but never too exhausted for each other.  They make love slowly and sweetly.  When they’ve finished, she rolls to her side and he spoons behind her, cradling her small body with his.  He smells her hair, kisses her neck, whispers against the smooth skin of her shoulder.

“я тебя люблю.”

He feels everything for her, multiplied to depths and heights that he didn’t even know existed.

She turns her head to him, presses her lips against his cheek.

“I love you, too.”

He makes her feel beautiful.

And today, they are happy.

When they sleep that night, they dream of each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you want to read the original summary, just for shits and giggles?
> 
>  
> 
> "Because time is a funny thing. It doesn't go fast enough when all you want to do is run away and you can't catch up with it when you desperately want it to slow down. It changes everything while never changing. You live every day when suddenly something mundane takes you and hurls you back through minutes and days and months and years to a moment. Your moment. But you remember and realize that you don't recognize yourself, seeing that it was so long ago. That person is gone, has permanently disappeared from the face of the earth, morphed irrevocably by the unrelenting tick of a second hand on a clock. They are accessible now only in your memory. And you don't even know who they are. You wish you could go back to being them. You wish you could stop time. You can't. It is impossible. Your life gets farther and farther away. The second hand ticks on."
> 
>  
> 
> It was four in the morning and I had a stomachache, whatever. The fic is better, I hope, if only slightly.
> 
> Love and thanks to you all. xo


End file.
